Walmart Apparently Feels Rollback Is The Same Thing As Rolling Absolutely Nowhere

Walmart just loves bragging about how it’s rolling back prices on items, you know, because that’s so much different than just calling something a sale. But perhaps the company and its handy little rollback sign needs a refresher course on the definition of “back,” as Consumerist reader Ben points out in this pic snapped at his local Walmart in Plano.

Ben writes:

Take a look at this nice rollback my local walmart at Plano Texas was offering this weekend. It such an amazing sale i just couldn’t pass on it :)

Let’s play the math game! Is $11.97 more or less than $11.97? Exactly. It’s the same.

We wouldn’t be able to pass up such an incredible non-sale either. All those nonexistent savings!

I know the workers who put up the signs are just doing their jobs, but when there’s a problem like this, do they not at least let someone know about it? Or was someone just having some fun, since the ‘Was’ price is not part of the rollback signage. Or they changed the ‘Was’ sign but forgot to change the ‘now’ price?

What probably happened is that the rollback ended – so the display would have said, say, $10.00, and the WAS price would actually have made sense.

Then the rollback ends. It’s quick and easy for the employee processing the price change to change the black and white price from $10 back to $11.97, particularly given the headaches that would result if they didn’t change the display and customers kept complaining when it didn’t ring up at $10. The black and white numbers are flip books, so it’s just a matter of sliding them out, flipping to the right number, and sliding them back in.

The topper, on the other hand, wouldn’t be as much of a priority, because – especially if the employee is processing a lot of price changes, including other items on features – it’s a bigger hassle to do, and, unlike the $10/$11.97 change, not likely to cause problems. Sure, it looks funny, and eventually management’s going to notice, but detail work like that is easier to take care of in batches when there’s time. (Or, you know, never, depending on who we’re dealing with.)

It’s not ideal, and it looks ridiculous, but it’s a fairly common shortcut, particularly in the last few years as department managers have been expected to take on multiple departments – when I quit Walmart, the woman who would have been responsible for household chemicals also ran paper goods, pets, cosmetics, and health&beauty, which is, frankly, insane and used to be handled by four separate department managers.

Better than my local Wal-mart’s “rollback” prices. When they expanded into a supercenter, I was amused that prices were now cheaper than they had been in the past (when they never carried that item in the past, and STILL hadn’t stocked that item for even the first time in that location.) Also, fwiw, for the “but that’s the price at other walmarts” argument: the prices vary from Walmart to Walmart, depending on local competition. At another store 20 miles away, you might find the same item for significantly less.